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421 books match the query 'Evolution' and 12 start with g

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Gaian Systems

Lynn Margulis, Neocybernetics, and the End of the Anthropocene

Bruce Clarke

University of Minnesota Press, 2020

A groundbreaking look at Gaia theory’s intersections with neocybernetic systems theory

Often seen as an outlier in science, Gaia has run a long and varied course since its formulation in the 1970s by atmospheric chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis. Gaian Systems is a pioneering exploration of the dynamic and complex evolution of Gaia’s many variants, with special attention to Margulis’s foundational role in these developments.

Bruce Clarke assesses the different dialects of systems theory brought to bear on Gaia discourse. Focusing in particular on Margulis’s work—including multiple pieces of her unpublished Gaia correspondence—he shows how her research and that of Lovelock was concurrent and conceptually parallel with the new discourse of self-referential systems that emerged within neocybernetic systems theory. The recent Gaia writings of Donna Haraway, Isabelle Stengers, and Bruno Latour contest its cybernetic status. Clarke engages Latour on the issue of Gaia’s systems description and extends his own systems-theoretical synthesis under what he terms “metabiotic Gaia.” This study illuminates current issues in neighboring theoretical conversations—from biopolitics and the immunitary paradigm to NASA astrobiology and the Anthropocene. Along the way, he points to science fiction as a vehicle of Gaian thought.

Delving into many issues not previously treated in accounts of Gaia, Gaian Systems describes the history of a theory that has the potential to help us survive an environmental crisis of our own making.

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Genera Palmarum

The Evolution and Classification of Palms

John Dransfield, Natalie W. Uhl, Conny B. Asmussen, William J. Baker, Madeline Harley, and Carl Lewis

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2008

Palms are iconic in our culture, representing everything from victory to vacation. And for nearly three decades, Genera Palmarum has been the stand-out reference for anyone interested in this economically and horticulturally important plant family. Now, this award-winning book has been completely updated and revised, bringing it in line with new research and newly discovered genera.
In this new edition, genus treatments now include complete descriptions, nomenclature, and etymology, as well as discussions of diversity, distribution, phylogeny, morphology, uses and ecology. All genera are fully illustrated with full-color photographs alongside analytic illustrations, distribution maps, and even electron micrographs of pollen. An updated introduction provides readers with essential background information via authoratative essays on the structure of palms, their chemistry, their history, and much more.
Fully revised for a new generation of researchers and gardening enthusiasts, Genera Palmarum continues to be the gold-standard reference work on palms.

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Genes in Development

Re-reading the Molecular Paradigm

Eva M. Neumann-Held and Christoph Rehmann-Sutter, eds.

Duke University Press, 2006

In light of scientific advances such as genomics, predictive diagnostics, genetically engineered agriculture, nuclear transfer cloning, and the manipulation of stem cells, the idea that genes carry predetermined molecular programs or blueprints is pervasive. Yet new scientific discoveries—such as rna transcripts of single genes that can lead to the production of different compounds from the same pieces of dna—challenge the concept of the gene alone as the dominant factor in biological development. Increasingly aware of the tension between certain empirical results and interpretations of those results based on the orthodox view of genetic determinism, a growing number of scientists urge a rethinking of what a gene is and how it works. In this collection, a group of internationally renowned scientists present some prominent alternative approaches to understanding the role of dna in the construction and function of biological organisms.

Contributors discuss alternatives to the programmatic view of dna, including the developmental systems approach, methodical culturalism, the molecular process concept of the gene, the hermeneutic theory of description, and process structuralist biology. None of the approaches cast doubt on the notion that dna is tremendously important to biological life on earth; rather, contributors examine different ideas of how dna should be represented, evaluated, and explained. Just as ideas about genetic codes have reached far beyond the realm of science, the reconceptualizations of genetic theory in this volume have broad implications for ethics, philosophy, and the social sciences.

Contributors. Thomas Bürglin, Brian C. Goodwin, James Griesemer, Paul Griffiths, Jesper Hoffmeyer, Evelyn Fox Keller, Gerd B. Müller, Eva M. Neumann-Held, Stuart A. Newman, Susan Oyama, Christoph Rehmann-Sutter, Sahotra Sarkar, Jackie Leach Scully, Gerry Webster, Ulrich Wolf

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Genomic Imprinting and Kinship

Haig, David

Rutgers University Press, 2001

Until twenty years ago we had no idea which of our genes came from our father and which came from our mother. We took it for granted that our genes expressed themselves identically and that there was a 50/50 chance that they came from either parent. We also assumed that they worked in cooperation with each other. The biggest breakthrough in genetics in the past two decades has been the discovery of genomic imprinting, which allows us to trace genes to the parent of origin. David Haig has been at the forefront of theorizing these developments. He argues that these "paternally and maternally active genes" comprise less than one percent of our total gene count and are far from being cooperative. In fact, they have been shown to be in competition with one another. If Haig's theory holds true, imprinted genes exemplify an extraordinary within-individual conflict, while shaking up our fundamental ideas of what it means to be an individual. This collection of Haig's papers represents a unique comprehensive overview of the state of evolutionary biology. The pages are linked by a commentary that provides background, and brings readers up-to-date on developments that occurred after the paper's original publication. Since genomic imprinting touches on many areas in the life sciences, including evolutionary biology and developmental genetics, Haig's work is scattered through the literature. This volume brings his work together for the first time. A volume in the Rutgers Series in Human Evolution, edited by Robert Trivers. David Haig is an associate professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University.

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George Eliot's Religious Imagination

A Theopoetics of Evolution

Marilyn Orr

Northwestern University Press, 2018

George Eliot's Religious Imagination addresses the much-discussed question of Eliot’s relation to Christianity in the wake of the sociocultural revolution triggered by the spread of theories of evolution. The standard view is that the author of Middlemarch and Silas Marner “lost her faith” at this time of religious crisis. Orr argues for a more nuanced understanding of the continuity of Eliot’s work, as one not shattered by science, but shaped by its influence.

Orr’s wide-ranging and fascinating analysis situates George Eliot in the fertile intellectual landscape of the nineteenth century, among thinkers as diverse as Ludwig Feuerbach, David Strauss, and Søren Kierkegaard. She also argues for a connection between George Eliot and the twentieth-century evolutionary Christian thinker Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Her analysis draws on the work of contemporary philosopher Richard Kearney as well as writers on mysticism, particularly Karl Rahner.

The book takes an original look at questions many believe settled, encouraging readers to revisit George Eliot’s work. Orr illuminates the creative tension that still exists between science and religion, a tension made fruitful through the exercise of the imagination. Through close readings of Eliot's writings, Orr demonstrates how deeply the novelist's religious imagination continued to operate in her fiction and poetry.

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Georges Cuvier, Fossil Bones, and Geological Catastrophes

New Translations and Interpretations of the Primary Texts

Martin J. S. Rudwick

University of Chicago Press, 1997

French zoologist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) helped form and bring credibility to geology and paleontology. Here Martin J. S. Rudwick provides the first modern translation of Cuvier's essential writings on fossils and catastrophes and links these translated texts together with his own insightful narrative and interpretive commentary.

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God and Evolution

Fundamental Questions of Christian Evolutionism

Jozef Zycinski

Catholic University of America Press, 2006

Written by Archbishop Józef Zycinski of Lublin, this book offers an important and insightful examination of the basic philosophical questions involved in the relation between evolutionary theory and the Christian religion.

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Gogol's Afterlife

The Evolution of a Classic in Imperial and Soviet Russia

Caryl Emerson

Northwestern University Press, 2002

Gogol's claim to the title of national literary classic is incontestable. An exemplar of popular audiences no less than for the intelligentsia, Gogol was pressed into service under the tsarist and Soviet regimes for causes both aesthetic and political, official and unofficial. In Gogol's Afterlife, Stephen Moeller-Sally explores how he achieved this peculiar brand of cultural authority and later maintained it, despite dramatic shifts in the organization of Russian literature and society.

Part I charts the historical and cultural currents that shaped Gogol's reputation, devoting particular attention to the models of authorship Gogol himself devised in response to his changing audience and developing authorial mission. Part II takes a panoramic view of the social milieu in which Gogol's status evolved. Finally, Part III examines the place of the classics in Soviet culture, with a focus on Gogol's role in the cultural revolution and his peculiar relationship with state power under Stalinism.

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Grandmotherhood

The Evolutionary Significance of the Second Half of Female Life

Voland, Eckart

Rutgers University Press, 2014

By the year 2030, the average life expectancy of women in industrialized countries could reach ninety—exceeding that of men by about ten years. At the present time, postmenopausal women represent more than fifteen percent of the world’s population and this figure is likely to grow.

From an evolutionary perspective, these demographic numbers pose some intriguing questions. Darwinian theory holds that a successful life is measured in terms of reproduction. How is it, then, that a woman’s lifespan can greatly exceed her childbearing and childrearing years? Is this phenomenon simply a byproduct of improved standards of living, or do older women—grandmothers in particular—play a measurable role in increasing their family members’ biological success?

Until now, these questions have not been examined in a thorough and comprehensive manner. Bringing togethertheoretical and empirical work byinternationally recognized scholars in anthropology, psychology, ethnography, and the social sciences, Grandmotherhood explores the evolutionary purpose and possibilities of female post-generative life. Students and scholars of human evolution, anthropology, and even gerontology will look to this volume as a major contribution to the current literature in evolutionary studies.

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